We wanted to write about Elena Filatova, an explorer at heart and creator of a 10-year online journal documenting her explorations by Motorcycle in the dead zone of (and beyond) Chernobyl. We highly recommend her website consisting of 10 years of intimate photojournalism into the behind the scenes story of what has really happened since the nuclear reaction at Chernobyl in 1986.

Her journals and photos are poignant while weaving political history, scientific antidotes, her personal impressions and true life stories of the abandoned people and animals, not only within the dead zone but in hundreds of ghost towns 40 to 80 kms away from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site.

Elena Filatova has made exploring these areas and ghost towns a life long hobby and this year at the 10th anniversary of her website published Chernobyl Photobook ' Ghost Town.'The proceeds go toward the author buying food supplies and essentials for all those still remaining in the irradiated and abandoned ghost towns and villages to this day.

We are also fond of the authors journal 'Land of the Wolves.' And recently, her concerns are for the recent nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan:

"Nowadays, we are moving from catastrophe to catastrophe so fast that no
one has time to learn from what is happening, thus we are doomed to
repeat it all again and again. Each time history repeats itself the
price goes up.

My aim is to take hold of important events I have witnessed and rescue
from oblivion deeds that have been forgotten or chosen to have been
forgotten. With time, cities perish and the memory of things is lost, so
the sole purpose of my work is to preserve memories on the internet
forever.

Since the Ghost Town site first went on the Internet in 2003, tens of
millions visitors have viewed the Chernobyl information which it
provides. This site is maintained by me, the author, and is completely
free of all popup ads and spyware. There are no copyright issues.

Work on this site is my hobby, which I pursue in my free time.""

We can't say enough good things about the authors courageous explorations into contaminated areas, her insights and obvious passion for her cause. In our mind's, Elena Filatova is the epitomy of what it means to be an explorer who explores the abandoned.

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It is Leaves in the Attics hope that the site and its content will exist on the Internet a long time, long after we are gone. It will take many years to develop all we can about the stories of the abandoned in our societies.

Areas we hope to cover are abandoned places and their people, the undesirables of society, in prisons, asylums, orphanages and contagion hospitals.

Other stories may include ghost towns, whole nations or civilizations, and the stories of the abandoned who called these places home before war or tragedy and environmental devastation took over.

In recent years, many urban exploration sites centralized around urban photographs of abandoned places, which exploded all over the Internet due to a popular reemergence of urban exploration some years ago.

We believe urban exploration is richer than the gathering of images or data about abandoned places, it's also the sharing of the stories about abandoned people and their history.

We care about abandoned places, but also the lives of the abandoned.... follow us...not on twitter, but into the lives of the abandoned ....